Rachel Lonergan

Title of Thesis: A poetry of my own reality.

Throughout our lives we constantly absorb personalities and atmospheres surrounding us. We are shaped by the people we meet and the situations we find ourselves in. We are each constructed from a unique set of experiences from which we develop a personal collection of images, symbols, words and phrases, collected and stored. My work revolves around creating a poetry of my own reality, beginning with the recording of any piece of information that somehow transcends the ordinary, then a process of distillation occurs by taking a snippet of this information and constructing a small poem around it.

Piecing phrases together until it encapsulates a feeling or moment in time. Like information thrown together in a dream the language develops and perpetuates itself, forming isolated poems packed with layers of meaning and associated emotion. The creation of these word compositions is loosely based on the Japanese poetry techniques of Haiku, Senryu and Heyga. The poetry is further brought to life through glass, projection and mixed media construction, creating a visual language full of covert messages. My MA show consists of a body of work which has arisen and evolved from these poems.

Education

1st class Honours Degree in Architectural Glass from North East Wales Institute 1992-96.

Future Plans

Upcomming exhibitions, including Sculpture in Context 2004.
Various private stained glass commisions.

Group Exhibitions

1994 Glaziers Guild Annual Show, Cochrane Theatre Gallery, London, UK.
1995 Glaziers Guild Annual Show, Cochrane Theatre Gallery, London, UK.
Glass of '96 Himley Hall, Dudley, UK.
1996 New Glass, Theatre Clwyd, Clwyd, North Wales.
Sculpture in Context 2003 National Botanic Gardens, Dublin.
2004 Convergence, Temple Bar, Dublin.